Blair Witch Project- Modern Days
by neenee575
Summary: 3 high school students searching for a story for an school project learn about the mystery of the "Blair witch Project" documentary created by college students years ago. Will they have any more luck solving the mystery behind the witch, or will they stumble into the same terror faced by college students years ago?
1. Chapter 1

***Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters or ideas from the movie "Blair Witch Project" made in 1999. This story is simply for fan purposes. Enjoy :) ***

Blair Witch Project - Modern Days

Part 1

"One grande macchiato and a tall caramel frap," I yelled to Caleb. He parroted the order back, and I nodded in confirmation. I punched the order into the ancient cash register. "Your total will be $9.50" I told the customer. They handed me the money, and I smiled giving them their change. "We'll bring your drinks right to yah, so ya'll can find a seat and get comfy".

They settled in and I watched Caleb work his coffee magic. He knew how to make everything we sold here and more, even the specialty drinks. He saw me watching and flipped the whipped cream can in his hands, and dramatically tossed it in the air. Then with a wink, he put the lids on the drinks, and brought them to the front.

"My ladies, may I present your coffee," he said, bowing like a prince. The girls laughed, thanked him, and curtsied back.

It was about noon and business started slowing down, not that there was ever really a rush hour. I went to the back to talk to Caleb as he cleaned up around the kitchen.

"Hey Liz. Business slowing down already?" he asked.

I nodded, and took my hair out of my work ponytail. I brushed it so it laid smoothly against my back, down to my waist. I took off my apron and playfully threw it at him.

I cleared my throat "So, have you thought about what we should do for the project?" I asked.

"Yeah… Well, sorta…" he said, talking slowly as he focused on cleaning the blenders.

I raised one eyebrow, "Oh really? Well then, watcha got?"

He stopped and nervously laughed. "Okay, you got me. I haven't thought of anything."

I laughed, "I figured as much. I'll call Josh and see what he has in mind."

By the time Josh finally made it to the coffee shop, I had already finished my shift. He apologized for taking three hours to get here by claiming he was with his sister as she was taking her drivers test.

Caleb wasn't helping either; he wouldn't stop shooting Josh dirty looks as he set up his laptop. I kicked Caleb in the shins under the table. He winced but Josh didn't see. I couldn't help but giggle when I noticed how lanky and scrawny he looked next to Caleb's athletic build.

Josh was clicking away at his high tech computer, and turned it around to show us a bunch of pages he pulled up on the Internet. He nervously pushed his glasses up his nose. "Okay. So I was doing research on the Internet, and I got to thinking, maybe we could do something on an urban legend."

Caleb snorted at the idea.

"No, that's a really good idea. Something local is a great idea," I said, smiling at Josh. As soon as he looked back at his computer screen, I kicked Caleb again. He tried to hit me and missed. I smiled even wider.

Josh took a deep breath looking up from his screen. "Well, there are tons we could do that originate within a 25 mile radius of here, with the swamp and everything. There's the Reed House, that was in Asheville, Thump Thump Drag in Arden, the Scratch Man-"

"Well if it's an ol' tall tale you're lookin' for, you could do that one 'bout the, uh, the Blair Witch" said a rough, heavily accented southern voice from behind us. Josh immediately shrank into his seat in the unfamiliar presence.

I inwardly rolled my eyes at that boy. "Hello Mr. Collins. How're you and your wife?"

He waved his wrinkled, weathered hand in dismissal. "This ain't 'bout Morgan. Look up the Blair Witch on that Internet. It raised a big ol' fuss a couple years ago when some college kids did one of those video projects on it. If I're you, I'd ask us ol' folks, most of you kids don't know all those ol' stories". He left at that and arthritically walked away, throwing a wave at us over his shoulder.

Caleb was the first to speak. "Well that was strange…"

"Yeah well you know how much time he spends alone, his wife is off taking care of a relative. Anyway, Josh, can you look up that witch? We could see what those kids found and build on that."

He nodded and pushed his glasses up. After a few minutes of vigorous typing and clicking, he raised his hands to his temple with a look of disbelief. He looked at us, unable to speak for a moment.

"You're not going to believe this."


	2. Chapter 2

***Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters or ideas from the movie "Blair Witch Project" made in 1999. This story is simply for fan purposes. Enjoy :) ***

Part 2

Day 5

By the end of the week there were a few things we knew for sure.

1. According to a few sources, the witch was a girl who took 7 children to her secluded house in the swamp. In pairs she brought them to their basement. The witch then forced one to stand in the corner and listen while they killed she other, and then killed the remaining child.

2. In 1999, three college kids did a documentary on the witch. They went into the woods in search of the fabled cemetery dedicated to the children. After becoming lost, losing a member of their group, and being hunted by unknown sounds, the three went missing with only their footage being found.

3. We found exactly the story we have been looking for.

Caleb, Josh and I had spent the last couple days interviewing the old people from the town. We quickly found out that the only people who really knew much about the witch were the people who were about 60-70 years old. We had seen a little bit of everything by the time we were done interviewing people. There were two types of people; those who gave us actual information we could use, and those who were just plain crazy and had no idea of what they were talking about.

Everything was too quiet in my house when my brother and sisters weren't home. Every step, every breath seemed too loud and out of place. I dropped my backpack in my room, changed out of my school clothes, and walked to the kitchen as silently as I could. My mom was at the counter cutting carrots for dinner. I stood at the doorway, trying not to intrude.

After a moment's hesitation, I cleared my throat to make my presence known. She showed no sign of acknowledgement. "Hey mama. Is it okay if I have Caleb and Josh over for a while tonight? We're workin' on this project for school, and we got a lot of footage to go through."

Her knife hovered over the cutting board for a moment as she pondered the idea. "Sure. What's cooking for one more person anyway," responded her monotone voice. Ever since dad died, she always seemed distant and disconnected. It was like she was drowning in her own little ocean, everyone else could swim.

"Okay. Thanks. They'll be here in 'bout an hour or so, so I'll be in my room if you need me." I said, already halfway down the hallway.

When I got to my room, I gently closed my door, leaning my head against it. I brushed my hair through my fingers, replaying the conversation with my mom in my head. We hardly ever talk anymore. The only time I ever actually talk to her is when we are at the table, and that's just so the little ones don't get scared and think that something is wrong.

But, nothing is really wrong after all. Things just haven't been right for a long time.

Josh got to the house first. The twins, Izzy and Lizzie made sure everyone knew of his arrival. From my room I could hear their excited shouts that announced his arrival. As soon as I let Josh in he was bombarded by questions from the family.

"How old are you?"

"Why are you so tall?"

"And skinny?"

"Why are you so tall and skinny?"

"Do you have any sisters?" asked the twins.

"Izzy, Lizzie, relax." I said. I picked them up, putting one on each of my hips. "You guys can talk to him all you want, just not right now. Caleb is coming over in a couple minutes. Why don't you go over to his house and play with his little sister?" I said to them. As soon as I mentioned Addie, their faces lit up and they started squirming to get out of my arms.

"Okay!" said Lizzie

"See you later!" said Izzy.

When Caleb got here, we already had all the videos organized and displayed on our computers. We said a brief hello, and he joined Josh and I on the floor.

We went over what we had gathered so far from the web, interviews, and what we saw in the movie that those college kids made years ago. We wrote down the gaps in the storyline and what we still needed to tape. Josh started putting together the videos we got earlier in the week on two of the computers, and I had the college kids' film playing on repeat on the other.

After a couple hours, Josh showed us what he'd been working on. The video started with a scene from the movie where Heather, the leader of the group, was asking people in the town what they knew of the witch. Then the video cut to Caleb saying how 15 years later, the legend still haunts the town, ending with the interviews we got earlier.

"Wow. That's really, really good. How did you know how to do all that?" I asked, turning toward Josh.

He blushed a little bit, looking back at the screen. He pushed his glasses up the way he does when he gets nervous or embarrassed. "It's nothing really. I spend a lot of my time on computers, so it was pretty easy I guess," he said. Caleb rolled his eyes and put his hands behind him on the floor.

_Oh my gosh! Is Caleb seriously jealous?_ I thought. To ease his mind I crawled over to him and leaned my head on his shoulder. He smiled and put his arm around me, just like he used to when we were little. Josh looked over and immediately stiffened at the sight of us being so close.

I opened my mouth to tell him to relax, but before I could say anything my mom yelled down the hallway.

"Liz, dinner's ready!"

"Okay, be there in a minute." I yelled back. I stopped at the door and turned to the boys. "Are ya'll coming or not?"


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters or ideas form the movie "Blair Witch Project" Made in 1999. This story is purely for fan purposes. Enjoy!

Part 3

Day 9

The next couple days we met at my house and pieced together our project little by little. Last night we were working in my room when Josh suggested we go into the swamp ourselves and videotape the cairns of the kids, and the site of where witchcraft rituals were performed in the 1800's. We were going to take Heather, Josh, and Michael lead and go into the woods to see the evidence of the witch ourselves.

I cleared the idea of going hiking this weekend with mom. As usual, she didn't have much to say about the matter. I called the guys and told them to meet me at my uncle's camping store downtown in 20 minutes. I grabbed my car keys, and looked into the playroom. My little brother, Ben, was watching SpongeBob on the mini TV.

"Hey Benny, wanna come to the store and see uncle Joe?" I asked him. He nodded his head and ran to grab my hand on his short little toddler legs. I smiled and carried him in my arms. We went into the kitchen and I wrote a note to my mom telling her where we were going. "Hey Ben, want to sign your name too?" I asked him.

"Yeah! I wanna- I wanna use the blue marker" he said, his words tumbling out of his mouth.

I kissed him on the cheek and handed him the marker. "You sure can little buddy."

At the store, we carefully chose everything we might need for our trip. We picked up food, clothes, medical supplies and everything in between. We talked to Uncle Joe about our project, and he was so excited he gave us some rain gear for free. As soon as Ben and I got home, I started packing. The plan was to leave tomorrow after school and spend the weekend hiking in the woods. We got a map and marked the areas in the swamp that are supposed to be locations of where the witch performed rituals.

Right before I went to bed I called Caleb and talked to him about how the weekend was going to pan out. We laid out a plan of what we were going to do and where we were going to go. We sat silently for a couple minutes, listening to each other's breath.

"Caleb?" I whispered.

"Yeah?"

"D'you think we'll be okay?"

"Course. Why?"

I took a deep breath. "It's just- those kids 15 years ago. They did exactly the same thing we're doing now. And they're gone. No one has seen them since," I paused, chewing on my thumbnail for a moment. "and I don't want to end up like those kids."

"Hey, listen to me," Caleb said in the soothing voice he uses when something bothers me. "Everything's going to be fine, I promise. You, Josh and I are going to go into the swamp, and we're going to see some freaky witch crap, and then we're going to come back and then were going to order a pizza or something. Okay?" he said.

I laughed. "Okay. Thanks Josh. I gotta go. See you tomorrow." I said.

"Alright. Night"

The next morning we set out about noon. We had already marked on the map where the road is closest to the first area we wanted to get to; the cairns of the original children killed by the witch. Caleb, Josh and I carried big hikers' packs. I carried the food, Caleb the tent, and Josh the cooking supplies, rain gear, and other miscellaneous items.

After riding in Caleb's car for about 15 minutes, we got the the edge of the swamp. We turned off the music, rolled up the windows, and locked the doors. It was one thing to talk about going in the swamp and filming everything for ourselves, but now that I was actually here, I was afraid. What happened to Heather, Michael and Josh was real. What happened to those 7 children was real. If we go missing, that's real too.

Caleb looked over at me and furrowed his eyebrows. He must have noticed I was getting worked up. He walked over to me and wrapped his arms around my waist. He pulled me close to his body by the small of my back. He held me pressed against his chest for what seemed like both hours and mere seconds at the same time.

"Hey," he said, quietly so only I could hear. "It'll be okay, I promise. We have gear, a map, phones, everything. We're going to be alright. I won't let anything happen to you. Okay?"

I looked up and studied his blue-green eyes for a moment. He seemed so confident, so sure that he would ward off whatever would come our way. Burying my face in his chest once more, I took a deep breath and nodded.

"Sorry to break up the love fest, but are we going to start walking or what?" Josh said.

I took a quick step away from Caleb. "Oh, right. Let's get going."

"How much longer, my feet are killing me!" said a whiney voice behind me. We had been walking maybe 2 hours, and easily had another ahead of us before we reached our first stop.

I stopped dead in my tracks, and turned around to look Josh straight in the eyes. "I swear, if you whine one more time, I am going to tie you to a tree and leave you there until I come back to the car. Shut. Your. Face." I said. He recoiled, clearly taken aback.

"I'm sorry, but I'm getting blisters!"

I sighed. "Fine. We'll take a break here. Fix your foot and then we really have to pick up the pace. If we stay here too long, we're going to be walking in the dark, and I seriously doubt you want to be in the middle of the swamp at night."

"Okay, okay. I'll be fast," he said and dropped his pack. I walked over to a long that lay on the ground, and checked my phone. I barely had any service out here. I turned it off to save battery, and put in back in my bag.

While Josh was fixing his foot, Caleb came over and sat by me. He playfully nudged me with his elbow, and I nudged him back. In about a minute our nudges turned into a game of extreme footsie. Caleb pinned my feet with his, and I started squirming to escape his grip. I was pulling as hard as I could, but he effortlessly kept my feet trapped on the ground.

"Oh come on, you can do better than that, Barbie," he said. I squealed in delight at the challenge and struggled to free my feet. I started to lean back, hoping to get better leverage. Caleb lifted his feet and I went sprawling backward. He let out a long hearty laugh and got up to come help me up.

"Are you okay?" he asked, still chuckling. I hit him on the arm, and took his hand. He pulled me up and helped me brush the leaves off my back.

"Thankfully for you, I am," I said.

"Well, I'm sorr-" he started, but cut his sentence short.

"What?" I said. I twisted around to see what he was looking at.

"Your arm's bleeding" he said and cursed under his breath. He scooped me in his arms, and set me down on the log. I took off my hoodie, and sure enough there was a cut on my arm. It was long and narrow, but shallow and didn't hurt much. Caleb put his hands to his head. "Liz, I am so, so sorry. I had no idea-"

"Caleb, I'm fine," I reassured him. "Just get the medkit, I'll try to find what it was. We'll clean it, wrap it up all nice, and I'll be as good as new." He nodded and went over to Josh. I started digging in the leaves behind the log. The only things I found behind the old log were leaves, sticks, and... string?

I stopped and started looking for the string again. I pulled it, and an object about the size of a sheet of paper came out. It was broken sticks, arranged to outline a human-like form with a torso, arms and legs. Binding the sticks together was an old, scratchy twine that was unraveling at the top, threatening to let the bundle fall apart at any moment.

"Caleb, Josh, I think I found something!" I yelled. The boys came running over.

"It looks like a, like a person!" Josh said. He pulled the camera out and started filming. He took the stick-person from my hand and held it closer to the lense. I looked over at Caleb, who was holding an antiseptic pad and a bandage. He looked from the object to me with a hard expression on his face.

Caleb opened his mouth, then closed it again before speaking. "Guys, I think I've seen that before. It's the same figure those kids saw in that movie. Remember? They were hanging in the trees..."

Simultaneously, we looked up. Sure enough, about 30 feet above our heads was an army of hundreds of stick people hanging from the branches of the trees.


	4. Chapter 4

p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original ideas or characters form the movie "Blair Witch Project" made in 1999. This story is purely for fan purposes. Enjoy :)/span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" /p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman';"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"Part 4/span/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" /p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"We fought over what to do next for a solid 20 minutes. I wanted to leave and pretend we never saw what was above our heads. Josh wanted to go back to the car despite having to walk in the dark. Caleb insisted that despite the creepy factor, this was just the beginning of what we were looking for, and that we have to keep going or else we would miss out on a lot. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"Caleb won. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"Caleb was in the lead guiding us and I was bringing up the rear. Josh finally shut up about his feet./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"I thought over what had just happened keeping my eyes trained on the ground. In the movie, everything started going downhill for Heather, Michael and Josh once they found the stick people for themselves 15 years ago. The thought left me absolutely terrified. Fear had me shivering, even though it was 70 degrees with only a mild breeze. Even the smallest of sounds made me jump. No matter how many times I told myself it was only us and various small animals out here, I could not shake the feeling we were being followed./span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"The sun was setting, turning the sky a hundred shades of yellow and orange. I don't know how far we had already walked, but the ground was getting squishy in some places and the trees were growing less densely. To my right there was a little brook that gurgled as it slithered across the land. We decided to set up camp for the night and divided the work between the three of us. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"Once the fire was lit we set up our beds and made dinner. We ate in silence, all staring into the fire. We all silently agreed not to talk about what we had seen earlier that day. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"We sat around the fire for an hour, then went into the tent one by one. I followed Josh in, and after a couple minutes Caleb came in too. I turned towards him in my sleeping bag. I wanted to tell him how scared I was. What we had seen earlier that day was not a coincidence. I opended my mouth to start talking, but he quietly shushed me. I closed my mouth and looked him in the eyes. After a moment, he put his arm around me. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"I was falling in and out of consciousness. The last thing I heard before I fell asleep was him whispering in my ear. "It'll be okay. I love you."/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0in;"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"***/span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"The next morning, I was the first person awake. I looked around, and saw the sun filtering through the tent walls. Right next to me, Caleb still had his hand on my shoulder. Josh on the other hand was curled up in the corner, sleeping with a light snore, and maybe even a little drool. I picked up my phone and turned off the alarm so I didn't wake the guys. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"I must have moved just a bit too much, because Caleb then woke up. His eyes were still puffy from sleep, and his short hair was half flat from where he lay his head. I mouthed a silent "good morning". Careful not to wake Josh, I crept out of the tent. It was beautiful out. The sky was blue, the sun was shining. I took a step out, and stubbed my toe on something hard. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;""Ow!" I said. At my feet lay a small pile of stones. They were wet, so I assume they came from the brook. They were neatly stacked. "Oh no" I said. My heart sank in my chest and my skin turned ice cold. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"I started hyperventilating. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"It was a cairn. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 15.0pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: black;"Just like the one from the movie. /span/p  
p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 10.0pt; font-family: Times;" /span/p 


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